You Can't Spell Island Without LSD
by stefanie bean
Summary: Sawyer discovers that squishing a harmless little tree frog leads to some trippy consequences.


**You Can't Spell Island Without LSD**

[**Notes**: _Takes place during "One of Them," 2x14. The boar which tormented Sawyer first appeared in "Outlaws," 1x16._

_Dendrobates auratus__, the "poison dart frog," is __native to South America, but is also found in the South Pacific. Its skin secretions can cause nausea and hallucinations_._]_

They say that revenge is a dish best served cold, but it tastes pretty sweet served hot off the buffet table, too. So thought Sawyer as he trekked through the dark Island greenwood with Hurley, searching for the screeching, peeping creature which had so disturbed Sawyer's sleep for the past few nights. Where the hell were they, anyway? Just a few moments before, Sawyer had stumbled upon Hurley in the jungle, crouched like a troll over a secret cache of Dharma Swan Station food, his hand up to the wrist in a gallon jar of ranch dressing. What an idiot, hiding food in the jungle. Like nobody was ever going to find out sooner or later. It was fun to watch the big dummy squirm, though, when he got caught. Then Hurley let it spill that he knew where the frog was, so Sawyer had badgered him into finding it for him.

Sawyer didn't recognize any of the surrounding jungle. Deep down he knew that Kate had been right when, with a laugh in her voice, she told him that he couldn't follow a trail if it was laid out in front of him like an airport runway. Wherever he and Sasquatch were going, the path led right into the peeper-creeper heart of darkness. Sawyer was too mad, though, to worry about finding his way back to the cluttered, sand-filled shelter he had come to call home.

Then, up ahead of them echoed that damn chirping again, loud as a Fourth of July one-frog ragtime band. Hurley ran towards it, but it was almost as if the jungle floor had it in for the big lummox, reaching up to catch his oversized feet and catapulting him to the ground with an "Oof" and a mighty thud. Then, a heartbeat later, Sawyer caught a flash out of the corner of his eye. In a slow-motion miracle, the shiny green and black tree frog leapt right across Sawyer's field of vision. He reached for it, and damn if it didn't seem like the little bastard wanted to be caught. The tree frog wiggled as Sawyer's hand closed around it. Now Sawyer was going to get his own back.

Hurley pleaded for the tiny thing's life, but Sawyer wasn't having any of that happy horse crap. While Hurley begged, Sawyer glared at him with a sharp, judgmental expression. _My God, look at him_._ Mrs. Tree Frog and a turtle named Stuart, what the hell is he babbling about? And how does somebody get to be such a mess? That's what happens when you spend your life on the couch playing Donkey Kong and stuffing your face with cheese nachos, I guess_. Contempt dripped off Sawyer, foul as the Dharma ranch dressing still stuck to Hurley's fingers.

Killing the noisy little son-of-a-bitch wouldn't return Sawyer's lost sleep, or make his pounding headache go away, but he didn't care. No doubt there were thousands more where the creature came from, but this one had the great bad luck to wind up caught in Sawyer's strong fist. _OK, frogger_, he thought. _It's reckoning time_. He squished it, and the tiny bones within the frog's body kind of crunched, then collapsed. Sawyer looked briefly at the broken corpse before handing it to Hurley. The frog's blood shone pale on Hurley's wide palm, pinkish instead of red. Then Sawyer turned away and strode off into the jungle, not caring enough to look behind him. Dumbo would probably do something stupid like bury it. Give it a funeral. That would be just like him.

Stumbling through the jungle, Sawyer tried to find the path back to the beach, but sweat poured into his eyes, so that everything swam together in a green-gold sea of vegetation. Man, it was hot out here. The temperature must have gone up twenty degrees since he'd first set out this morning to look for that damned frog. The air hung sluggish and thick under the thick green jungle canopy. Sawyer wiped his forehead, not thinking about the sticky slime which coated his hand. The scratches on his forehead suddenly started to sting, like fire ants. "Son of a bitch," he muttered as he rubbed his hand on his pants leg. Then he tried to clean his forehead, but the stuff was like glue, and all he did was move it around. Some got into his eye, and that burned like a red bitch from hell.

Cursing a blue streak now, Sawyer stumbled about in the waist-high grass, half-blinded, water streaming from his eye. He broke through the jungle to the beach front, then fumbled his way back to his tent and crawled inside. Every place on him that he'd touched with that stuff burned, the palm of his hand, his face, and especially his eye, now entirely blurred. He'd be damned if he'd call on Jack, either, like a calf bleating for its mother. Jack would give him that blank doctor stare which didn't quite cover the dislike in his eyes. Screw that. He'd just lie down for a spell. How bad could a little frog goo be, right?

A few minutes later the nausea hit him. He barely made it out of his tent in time, before he doubled over and threw up into the sand. He hadn't even got to cover the mess when another wave hit. Somebody nearby yelled, "Take it to the latrine up the beach, man. That's gross!"

The old pit latrine lay northeast from the beach camp, up the shoreline where the survivors had first camped after the crash, before the wreckage of Oceanic 815 had been washed out to sea. At first Sawyer walked along the sea-strand, but the bright sun stabbed his eyes, so without thinking he headed off into the jungle. That was usually a mistake, since the jungle was where polar bears roamed, or columns of black smoke ripped up trees by their roots, or traps dropped boulders on your head. Sawyer didn't care, though. Anything to get out of this sun. But before he headed into the cool shaded greenery, he cast one last defiant look up at the great glowing orb in the sky, shot through with twisting, pulsing flares of purple and red. Somewhere in the back of his mind a warning sounded. Never look directly at the sun, ever, but he ignored it. Then, just before the stabbing pain became too much to bear, he turned aside in horror, for the blinding disk had stared back at him with the ferocity of everlasting judgment.

Man, what the hell was happening to him? He fled the beach, then forged his way through thick curtains of creepers, grateful to hide in the shade, looking for the latrine, but there was no sight of it. Not even a whiff. Midday sunlight shone down directly from above, but why was there a big blue halo around each leaf? The pebbles at the path's edge seemed to vibrate. Goddamn, he could have sworn that some of them moved. He stared in fascination as a few small brown rocks grew legs and began to crawl away. A breeze came up to blow the feathery leaves about, and as they moved, they left long trails behind them of pure color, the most intense blues, purples and greens that he had ever seen.

The nausea retreated a bit, so Sawyer pushed on his way forward through an interlaced arch of branches hung with fragrant flowers. He passed through to a clearing with short, thick grass, and sank to the ground, with no inclination to get up. The bushes rustled on the other side of the clearing, and Sawyer half-hoped it was Hurley. He'd apologize for the damn frog, if that'd make Dough Boy happy. In fact, it would be nice to have someone help him back to his tent, now that it seemed that he wasn't going to puke all over everything anymore. He tried to pull himself to his feet, but something was wrong with the air. It rippled like clear jello embedded with dusty little specks of trapped light. Sawyer pawed at the thick, jellied air, but it was too heavy for him, and he sat back down with a grunt.

A huge waterfall of gold sunlight poured through the canopy in a cascade of what back home they called 'god-light.' The leaves rustled louder now, sharp as crackling paper. Every sound seemed crisper and more distinct, especially the swishing, wind-blown leaves. He could distinguish every bird chirp, and he could swear the birds were laughing at him. A host of small purplish ones gathered above him on a tall bush, chattering and cackling. When they put their heads together, they looked like women gossiping. "Shut up!" Sawyer shouted, and they fell silent at once. He picked up a stone to heave at them, but forgot about it, because the blue veins on his hand stood out like tattoos. Worse, it was as if he had no skin at all, and there was his blood flowing through his veins, his hand clear like that Visible Man which had sat in the corner of his grammar school classroom. Man, that used to freak him out so bad as a kid, because under that plastic shell you could see all the bones and organs inside.

He dropped the rock with a cry. Now he was scared, really scared, and he pulled himself to his feet despite the weight of the air. The jungle swayed like one of those cheap rides, when the carny comes to town in midsummer and you're never quite sure if that bucket of bolts Tilt-a-Whirl is going to explode while you're on it, sending you hurtling to the ground below. But you get on anyway, because your girl will think you're a pussy if you don't. Then you whirl around till you're sick. It was like that.

Down he went again, pushed by wind which rolled through the jungle like leafy thunder. The golden god-light surrounded him on all sides. He screwed his eyes shut to keep out the waterfall of living light, but that was worse, because a riot of kaleidoscopic colors exploded across the velvet black behind his eyelids. They swelled and ebbed in delicate patterns of pink and turquoise and the ever-present gold.

When he opened his eyes, a little old woman squatted in front of him, naked from the waist up. He leaned back in surprise, falling on his backside. She stood up. Long greyish hair covered her shoulders, but not her droopy breasts or her thin, wrinkled body.

"Hey, Mrs. Yoda," Sawyer said, struggling to get to his feet and failing.

"Don't bother," she said. "You won't be able to. Not for awhile."

"What the hell?"

"What the hell yourself. Who do you think you are, anyway? Stupid _haole_."

Sawyer didn't know what that meant, but it didn't sound like a compliment. He struggled to get control of his tongue. "You know, sweetheart, you could get a job posing for those vintage Playboy cartoons. The ones with the old lady, I mean. Don't you think you ought to put a top on?" All the same, his heart beat fast. She was about four and half feet tall from toe to crown, but she looked fierce. And mean.

She held open her hand, and there was that damned frog again, squished flat.

"So Jumbotron didn't bury it after all," Sawyer said.

"Of course he did."

"Well, then, looks like you dug it up."

"Things can be in two places at once. But you are ignorant as crab spoor and don't know that."

"Hey, Bloody Mary, I didn't ask to get stuck on this damned island."

"To the damned, all things are damned," she answered in her flat, scratchy voice.

"I don't have to listen to this," Sawyer said. "Just get the hell out of here and let me sleep it off." There was no way he was going to sleep, though. Everything jumped out at him, way more alive and colorful than they ever ought to be. And he didn't dare close his eyes again.

A harsh screeching call from the jungle made Sawyer whirl around, and now his heart beat even faster, hammering against the wall of his chest. If he had thought things couldn't get any worse, he was wrong.

Some kind of weird animal and human mix crashed through the foliage, snapping twigs and leaves as it approached. Loud thumps echoed from gigantic hooves. It looked like a man riding a boar, but what a boar, almost the size of a small elephant. In his confusion Sawyer said, "Hurley?" because the man at first glance suggested him, only bigger and with more muscle. His long black hair fell in ringlets over his huge shoulders. Legs like tree-trunks gripped the boar's shaggy sides. But his face, that was the worst, because he looked like one crazy mother. If you saw that insane grin on some guy sitting next to you at the bar, you'd turn right around and walk the hell out of there, hoping he didn't follow you into the parking lot.

The boar looked at Sawyer with a knowing expression. It narrowed its piggy brown eyes and grunted, "Hey, Sawyer. Long time no see. Get your tent fixed up?"

_I did not just hear that_, Sawyer thought.

The huge man's voice boomed out, "Haumea, is this piece of crap bothering you?"

The old woman didn't answer, but just showed the crushed frog to the big fellow, who folded his arms over his belly and looked down at Sawyer with genuine regret. "Aw, man, why'd you have to go and do that?"

"Because he's a dumb-ass," the boar remarked.

Without waiting for an answer, the man said to Sawyer, "You married?"

"What?"

"Answer Kamapua'a." Haumea sounded just like Sawyer's Granny. And you didn't mess with Granny when she got that tone, or you were likely to get the strap across your behind before you knew it.

"No, sir," and Sawyer drew the "sir" out with a long sneer. "I'm not."

Kamapua'a shook his great head, his curls rising up in the wind. "If you were, you'd know what it's like to have a mother-in-law. Because, see, now you've done it. You've pissed off my mother-in-law. She's going to go complaining to my wife, or she would, if my wife were in town. Doesn't matter, she gets my wife riled up, then my wife tries to rile me up, and before you know it, I'm sleeping on the beach." He unfolded his round arms, leaned down from his mount, and his white teeth flashed in his grinning wide mouth. "And I'm not the kind of guy who likes to sleep on the beach, get it?"

"Got it, loud and clear." Sawyer's tone indicated that he didn't.

Kamapua'a lumbered down from the boar to stand next to the old woman, looming over her by a good four feet. Then, graceful as dancers, they both squatted down, which put Kamapua'a's head just about level with Sawyer's. The big man's belly almost brushed the ground.

"Apologize," Kamapua'a said.

"Hell, no. It was just a damn frog. You're worse than Hurley, getting all worked up about it."

Kamapua'a fixed Sawyer with a warning glare. "Don't be stupid. Me, I can go to Hawai'i, show up at parties on the beach, and when Pele - that's my wife, gods love her - when Pele gets a wild hair up her honeypot to start a revolution or something, she drags me along and I go, because revolutions have the best parties, you know? Me and Pele, we're modern. We can mix, and we know that you people are just butt-ignorant. Most of you, you're not even evil. You don't have what it takes to be evil. You're just stupid. Stupid and weak. But my mother-in-law here," and he waved a hand the size of a _tapas_ plate towards Haumea, "She's old-fashioned. She doesn't cut you people any slack."

"Sounds like she's right out of the Old Testament," Sawyer said. "A regular Mrs. Fire and Brimstone."

Kamapua'a smacked Sawyer playfully on the arm. Fortunate for him, it wasn't the one with the healing bullet wound. It still hurt like hell, though, and Sawyer fell over.

When Sawyer pulled himself upright, Kamapua'a's grin had gotten even wider. "Hey, maybe you're not so stupid after all. Yeah, I know about that brimstone stuff. We only had it shoved down our throats for, how long? Three hundred years? Yeah, bro. It's like that. She's like that. So if I were you, I'd man up and say you're sorry. Since it's taken you so damn long, it had better be real pretty, too."

Sawyer glared at the two of them. The wild colors were starting to fade, and the birds just put out ordinary chirping, rather than gossip. He was getting a powerful headache again, too. "Screw you," said Sawyer. "Go back to your damn boar rodeo, and screw you both."

Haumea just sighed and said, "A life for a life." She opened her mouth and swallowed the frog like it was candy.

"You did it now," said the boar to Sawyer. "You're gonna be real sorry." Then it knelt so that Kamapua'a could lift the old woman on board before climbing up himself.

"You'll be OK in a few hours," said Kamapua'a to Sawyer. "And one more thing. No need to breathe a word about catching Hurley with that stash in the jungle, right? I like that boy. Don't bust his balls." Then, without bridle or reins, Kamapua'a, Haumea, and the boar trotted off into the jungle.

Sawyer sat there in a daze, and then after a while he did doze off. When he woke up, the headache was mostly gone, and the jungle had returned to its normal shimmer of green and heat. He rubbed his eyes with his shirt, careful not to use his bare hand in case some of that poisonous glop remained. _What a dream_, he thought. _Worse than you get from drinking that home-brewed rotgut back at the old place. The kind that got flavored with a little wood-alcohol or formaldehyde. Stuff that will really mess with your head._

It wasn't until he got to his feet, to find his way back to the beach, that he noticed the large and distinct pile of boar scat.

"Son of a bitch," Sawyer said.

[_Thanks to Peekadora and Queenblue for beta-ing_.]


End file.
